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Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Too Many Ideas, Not enough Time.

I never thought I would say it, but I have too many ideas for series of paintings. My mind is swimming with ideas that I want to work on but now I feel like I don't have enough time. How is that possible??? I am a full-time artist now! All I have to do is paint (okay, i also have an apartment to clean and meals to cook too and I'm sure my fiance would like to see me sometimes) so why do I feel like I don't have enough time to work on all of my ideas? I feel like I got a lot more work done when I had a day job since I had to make sure that I crammed as much painting time as possible in a day. Hell, I painted 18 paintings in less than a month while teaching all day and tutoring twice a week! Why is it so difficult now?

It is during these times that I feel like I must be a bit A.D.D. I have so many thoughts swimming around in my head since now I have the time to actually think about new ideas and series. This is normally a great thing, except now I feel overwhelmed that I don't have enough time in the day, week, summer to get them all done. I know I need to focus on one thing at a time but I get so excited about new things that I want to try those out too. Then I start to wonder how will I meet the needs of the galleries showing my work AND still be able to experiment and work on these new ideas. I know there's a balance. I guess I just haven't figured what that is since I am new to this whole "painting full-time" gig. I haven't quite figured out how to divide my painting time so that I am doing all of the things I want to do. Do I devote a different day of the week to do specific projects? Or do I divide up my day to do this? Do I just focus on one series at a time?

After having taught for 13 years, I am so used to structure and need it. I like schedules and timelines. It helps me get work done. I guess I just need to figure out how to schedule everything I want to do within a week. I'm sure eventually I will get the hang of this and figure out how to fit everything in. I'll have to. This is my career we're talking about. In the meantime, I guess I'll just be a stereotypical, neurotic artist...

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About Me

Jhina Alvarado is a self-taught artist who is represented by galleries across the United States. Her work has been featured in various international and national magazines, blogs, and art technique books. She currently works part-time as a calculus and pre-calculus teacher at the Ruth Asawa School of the Arts and paints full-time in her home studio in San Francisco.
Visit her website at www.jhinaalvarado.com